Awakened Convos: Founder of Kids Who Bank, Jatali Bellanton, Drops Financial Gems

By Leslie Ramirez / February 5, 2021 / WEALTH BUILDING / 0 Comments

H.O.R.: Hey Guys, this is House of Ramirez, and I am so excited to have the opportunity to have the great Jatali Bellanton on House of Ramirez, you already know what’s up. Jatali, I would like to go ahead a give you a big hug, and a big pat on your back. Girl, you are the definition of female empowerment. I see it all, and I am very proud of you. You push us all to keep doing it.

First of all, I would like to say that I have been reading up on the things that you have been doing, and you are so impressive, at a very young age you started…I am pretty sure even younger than that, at 8 years old, you were already interested in the world of finance. You were interested in big conversations at a young age. Your drive has pushed you into that direction. You were young but determined…I was reading some of the things that you were doing at 10 (Jatali laughs).

As I was reading up on you, I stopped and thought to myself, this girl has got it going on (H.O.R. gives Jatali a round of applause, to which Jatali extends her gratitude).

Jatali: Thank you, the love is always appreciated. Sometimes it is funny because I look at this new generation of youth, and I see that they are accomplishing so much, they are becoming millionaires by 8 years old, and I look back and question what I was doing with my life, and then to hear you say that I think, maybe I was not doing so bad for my era (she laughs). But thank you for the love, it is really appreciated.

H.O.R.: So, Jatali for a lot of our readers/viewers/listeners, that do not know who Jatali Bellanton is, please tell us who you are and where you are.

Jatali: I was raised predominately in the U.K., but I live in New York City. I do travel a lot, and I do a lot in Ghana. Me personally, I am a mixed woman who wants to ensure that all my people of color get the financial tools, and empowerment, the list continues. So whether you are Afro-Latina, or you are from East N.Y. in Brooklyn, or Brixton, U.K., it does not matter what your economic background, I want to ensure that you have the financial tools that you need to get to the next level of your life.

My background is in finance, investment banking, forensic accounting, and then from there I went into teaching financial literacy in the school systems. It has been exciting, and besides being an author of a financial literacy book, we created a curriculum, and that curriculum led to a program that has now been implemented in over 217 schools. It has been amazing, it has been a great experience, and now we are getting ready to tackle adults, and teaching them about money, finance, and how to manage, how to maintain it, invest in stock markets…etc.

If you told me when I was younger that this is what I was going to be doing, I would have not believed you. Originally, I knew that I liked to help people, but I thought that it was going to be in the medical field, becoming a child psychologist, or a pediatrician or something of that nature. I never knew that I would be helping children and adults with their financial journey. But that is in short who I am and what it is that I do. So, one moment, I might be speaking Spanish to you, and then the next it could French or Creole, Cape Verdean, or even Portuguese, it is a whole melting pot, and it allows me to connect with the world.

H.O.R.: That is very commendable, Jatali. You are very humble, and you are so smart and not to mention, powerful. Girl, you got that bag…I’m just saying (they both laugh). Your humility is refreshing, and it is a good example for all of us to follow. There are a lot of people out here that are full of themselves, and that is just sad, you can have all the money in the world but sometimes, you may not be the best person on the inside, and you my friend are a beautiful person on the outside and you are a great person within. You have got the looks and the brain (Jatali thanks her).

I have been reading about all that you are doing to teach the children and I would like to get into that in just a moment, but first I would like to discuss how at 8 years old, you were already asking your father to teach you everything that he knew about finance, is that correct?

Jatali: Yes, that is correct. When you are in the household with both of your parents, one of them might be irresponsible, and luckily, I had a person that I was able to talk to about certain things like money, so I asked him to teach me the ropes. When I observed my mother-figure, she was bad with money, she was so irresponsible. If there has been anyone that has heard the interview where we talk about my childhood, that is what you will hear. It is not to bash her in particular because there is a whole demographic, she is a West Indian woman, and there is an era of parents that commuted to the States, and nobody spoke to them about money.

It became their coping mechanism, and whether you were from the Latin community, or West Indian, or you name it…I noticed that the people who migrated here, the first thing that they would do to compensate in order to make themselves feel better was to purchase something that would make them more worldly, something physical to make them look good. If they had an accent, they overcompensated with the clothes that they wore, it is just on so many levels.

Fast forward, I was in a situation where I had that kind of a parent, and not that she was not a hard worker, it was as if all the work that she did fell on deaf ears because she would literally live, borrow to borrow. By the time her next check came it was already spent because she would have to pay back all the people that she borrowed from. It was a perpetual cycle and when she would get a lump sum, it was still the same cycle, because no one ever taught her how to handle a lump sum.

In the same way that we look at our modern-day athletes for example, a lot of our football players, basketball players, and tennis players…many of them do not have a financial advisor. If you give a person who knows very little about money, and who probably loves their family, you give them a lump sum…say like a million dollars, then within less than a year that money will be gone, and it is because no one sat down with them and discussed money. They do not have financial advisors; they do not have family members or parents that they can go to in order to have these conversations. It is just a cycle that continues, and it is a cycle of poverty, and I did not want to be a part of that because I saw the outcome of what could happen… the worst-case scenario, I have seen it, and it just spirals out of control.

H.O.R.: I agree with you, and I was trying not to get emotional when you were talking about our parents or our great-grandparents, or our family. My parents are immigrants, they came here from Mexico. My mother was a farm girl, and my dad was an educator. They did not know how to handle that either because they were not informed, and I do not blame them, but it is something that I do realize that the Spanish community coming into the states, it is something that they deal with, just like you mentioned, you hit it right on the nail; they do not know.

They do not know how to manage the money, and they have never seen these amounts. When they do have that type of money, they do feel like they have to compensate for all of the things that they were not able to get, they want to turn around and give their children material things, but material things do not hold any value in the long run. I did see one of your products that says, ‘Money is not my God’ (Jatali laughs in the background), that is so true. That is the mentality that we have to have, there is nothing wrong with material things, I am just saying to make sure that you have investments, so that when you do have a few material things, you can enjoy those, but you need to know that there is a bigger investment somewhere else where it’s banking…it’s holding weight.

Jatali: 100% and you know, it is so crazy because oftentimes we blame the parents for not knowing this information, but when you are coming from your country, you could hold a doctorate or a PH.D and then get here to the states and they will be like, there are new boards, there are new things that you have to learn, and my friends from the Indian community…you name it, where their family members back home were very powerful, and they get to the states, and you are starting from ground zero again. I have had family from Cuba, and different places around the world and they all go through it including Africa.

For some people, they may have had generational wealth in your country and then you come here, and now for the first time you will have to create your own wealth. You have to have this hustler attitude; it is like some people think of entrepreneurs as these easy people who just sit back, and millions of dollars just pour into their bank accounts. But in reality, you actually work more than a person who works 9-5. Right? You work more, your grind has to be harder if you want to be successful. The people who are mediocre tend to not be as successful. It is not overnight celebrity because literally, you might find out about them overnight, but they have been years in the making. So we have to start shifting that conversation, and at some point, the parents and other adults have to either step out of the way or we as youth can help them get to their next level, or they can learn it themselves because now with the power of google…it is not like back in the day when we would have to go to the library and research things and pray that there was a book that helped you find out what you needed to learn.

Google, the internet period has been a miraculous thing, so when I look at the youth that I was mentioning, it is not only about how amazing they are, but they also have the world at their fingertips. People in my age group, I am in my mid-30’s and those in their 40’s…etc., we created that for them, we created this database, we added the information into the database. It is beautiful to watch them take off and run with it. But then our parents need to take that information and run with it too. Our grandparents who are wondering what a mutual fund is, we need to tell them what one is.

Do you have a Will and Testament, do you have a trust fund? We need to start having these conversations. It is uncomfortable because in our community, especially ethnic communities, children, and parents are not supposed to talk about money. If you say something to them about a budget, it’s like, hija (daughter) do not watch my coins, you always have food on the table, do not ask me about anything. At the same time though, there is a whole other world beyond food on the table. There is a world where if you do pass away, which eventually is going to happen, can the funeral arrangements be paid for? Because go-fund me is not a security blanket.

How do you have that uncomfortable conversation with your parents, discussing money with your parents because we live in a world where it is almost taboo. People have sex with each other but will then be hesitant to ask a guy about a credit score, and I think how could you not know his bank situation, or what his credit score is when you have been intimate with this person. You are spiritually connected, married or not you are still spiritually connected, and you cannot even ask someone how their credit score. So, there is this big taboo around the money conversation, and that needs to be changed.

H.O.R.: I agree, you know I did see that when you became older, you became involved with property investment at 10 and then at the age of 16, you accepted an internship that placed you on the right path. You already knew what you wanted, and not only did you know what you wanted, but you went after it, and that is a great big inspiration for someone who is seeing your story unfold, who will recognize that you saw what you wanted and that you had the courage and determination to go after it, that shows us that there is nothing stopping us.

The internet has all the answers, if you are unable to find the answers go to YouTube and if it’s not there then another platform will have it. Another thing is that people are so open giving you some advice if you just ask for it…you know closed mouths…

Jatali: …they don’t get fed. It is interesting to me because some people think, oh you must have had it all together, and I am like, no I am only human, and I am going to still make mistakes. Even with all of that knowledge, and as much as I was learning there were still things that my dad did, but he did not teach me about why he did those things, and as a kid, you explore because you do not know why you were not shown. So, I just made my own mistakes such as, paying full price for things, not looking for the discount because I would think, well I do have the money because I have been saving. Once in a blue moon you can do that, but it should not be on a regular basis.

I remembered working for this company as a forensic accountant, I was looking at my clients who were multi-million/billion dollar clients, and they are budgeting, there are looking for the sample sales, they are looking for how they can get affiliated marketing so that they can get things for free, they are looking for every bargain that they can find. It occurred to me, here we are as people, and sometimes we think that just because we make the money, that we are supposed to be spending it. But in reality, the rich are trying to finds ways to not spend the money. They also get a lot of things for free depending on how they have aligned themselves and that list is long from Gucci bags to traveling for free.

You could travel to Mexico and stay at a villa and the whole villa is free to you because you are an influencer, or if you have aligned yourself in such a way that they feel it merits, or you could be a travel blogger. I knew a woman who was a travel blogger who literally only had 500 people who were reading her blog on average, but they would go on her website so there were a lot of clicks. From her 500 followers, she moved it up to 1000. After 1000 followers in she was getting 60% off of hotels and resorts, or she was completely staying for free. She would have arrangements like, you go ahead and pay for your flight and then when you get here, you will get the suite for free, and it was not because she had a million followers. I put that out there because it is not about how many followers you have, it’s about your reviews, it’s about many views are you getting, It’s about what are you doing to engage your consumer, and can you show your value, can you make the world see your value, and utilize that.

In my journey I made those kinds of mistakes, where I would pay full price for stuff. If something came damaged instead of returning it, I would think that it was too much of a hassle to go out of my way to return it, and I would just decide to keep it and fix it, and I remember that was a conversation. Another conversation was if you buy something and it has an issue you should not have to go and get it fixed, or you should not have to stay home and hem it yourself, return it, and if it is meant to be then you will find your size, but I don’t want to do that and then I would go back and get 20% off. There is always a discount to be had, and so there were little conversations like that really took me to a different level in my thinking.

Recently, there was property that I wanted to purchase, and it was outside of my bracket. I was looking at the flip potential of it, asking myself if I wanted to spend this much, it was a reminder that no matter how many times you level up, there is always another level. You might be looking at how much you have but that building is 10 million cash, and you could flip it for 20 million. So there is always another level and that would be the case even it was $5000, there may times when we want to flip 5 to make is 10,000, but are you making the right investments, or are you making all of these $100 deals that can only give you about a $2 profit, and then when the big deal comes around, you do not even have the money because you put it in smaller eggs. Smaller eggs that might take equally as long to hatch or that might never hatch.

It is always about making sure that you are making wise investments, and you know what you are doing, and you are dotting all of your “i’s” and crossing all of your “t’s.”

H.O.R.: I am fully supportive of that, the more that I read on you sis, the more my jaw dropped in amazement and I was impressed, you are doing it big! You are the owner of ‘Kids Who Bank’, and like you mentioned initially, you are not only helping children become financially stable and financially literate, but you are helping adults. There is no excuse for us to not be smart financially, in this day and age when we have someone like you guiding us. We have many others as well, but you have a program that strategically helps children, and adults.

There is no excuse to not be empowered financially for yourself, if you do not go out there and obtain it, there is no excuse.

Jatali: You can send me a message. I tell people all the time whether you are a man or a woman, I will not respond to you if you just send me a message saying, hi. Time is money, money is time…I do not know who you are and even if you were my cousin and you just send me a text that says hi, I do not have time for that, if you are going to send me a message then ask me a question, and then let me respond to you. If you are a stranger, you do not know me, then introduce yourself. Hi, I am…and I am interested in learning about option trading, whatever it is, reach out to me and be human.

We are all human, and we all would like to be treated as such. So, sometimes people are very transactional, sometimes people are just weird. We live in a world where people do not even know you, one person sent me a message asking if I could donate 10,000 to their charity and I am like…who does that, do not just come with your hand out. With everything in life, whether it is a mentor, recently I was having a conversation with one of my mentees, she reaches out every time that she needs something. I told her that I was going to put her on a retainer and make her pay.

She wanted to know what she did wrong… I said, you never reach out to see how I am doing, and I am a human, so when you to learn something then you reach but you never just reach to say hey Jatali, I hope that you are having a good week, hey Jatali, I hope all is well…hey Jatali, safe travels. It is a human component that a lot of us are missing, and no matter how rich we become, there is a balance in making sure that we are human, and giving each respect and love, when we are showing light, and then the other side of that is the business aspect of things is that time is money, so do not waste people’s time; so if you are coming, come correct.

If you do not know what it is that you would like to do with your life, then maybe you have something that you can barter in order to get the information and the knowledge that you would like to have. We have all have at least one skill, whether it’s a bake-off and someone offers to donate 1,000 cupcakes at your next fundraiser. We all have a value or something that we can do. I will answer your phones for a month, can you teach me how to budget…you know. On top of that there is so much free information that we provide on our social media, our YouTube, and I have IG Lives, and even this interview, because it is important, the laws of reciprocity…as you are receiving from the universe, that we are giving back.

H.O.R.: Exactly, it’s a whole cycle and I tell people all the time, just today I had an IG Live, and I was telling people that it is about your energy, the way that you think, the way that you talk to yourself, and to others…it moves, and it does not just stay with you, it transmits to other people it repels and bounces off of people, and it goes wherever you go. So, it is important that you watch what you are doing, how you conduct yourself, and how you treat others, because it is coming right back to you. Do not do something, expecting something back in return, I am saying do something out of kindness and genuineness, knowing that it will come back to you.

Jatali: 100%, so we teach the kids in the schools, we talk about financial affirmations, we teach them about positive and negative affirmations. For instance, when people say that they are so broke, we teach them not to say that do not put that into the universe that you are broke, it is as if you have resigned yourself to not having the means that you would like to have. Or when people say things like, I stay broke…well then you might stay like that for real, because you are telling the universe that that’s how you stay.

I had a woman who reached out to me saying, I cannot get hired no matter what I do, can you interview me…mock interviews, and I said sure ok I will do that, so she was going out for an interview and she said, well I am not going to get the job anyway, but I am going to try. I was like do you realize that you just put out into the universe that you are not going to get the job. That means that when you walk in, your energy is already dictating that you will not win. So, you walk in with this cloud of doom over you, essentially going through the motions because you believe that you are not going to get the job, and your body language will reflect that. so we had to practice breaking that habit.

I gave her a book, a recommendation, and she read the book and then we had a conversation, and she realized that she needed to break the habit of speaking defeat, to which I agreed. We had a very good conversation, and she was able to take that, and she finally got a job. It was about changing her energy about who she was and what she could accomplish. But we do not realize how deep that goes, it is like a relationship, if you think that you are stupid or that no one loves you and you do not deserve to be loved then you will find that person who will treat you like you are stupid, who will not give you any love, because you sent that out into the universe.

Negativity energy attracts negative energy; therefore, positive energy attracts positive energy. The thing about positive energy is that is can also attract negative energy, so you have to make sure that you are being mindful of what energy you are accepting into your world…in your universe.

H.O.R.: Exactly, I am fully supportive of that one, you spoke everything that is true about that, and that is why like you said it is important to keep that positive energy around yourself, and you become informed. For example, the program that you have for the youth and the adults, you instruct them to do something that is beneficial to them. So, not only will it be a positive thing for them in their lives financially, but it will also help to boost their confidence.

I see that since 2018, you have an annual kid-preneur award gala, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Jatali: It is one of my favorite things that we do. The kid-preneur award gala, honors youth entrepreneurs and philanthropists and the adults creating ladders for them. So, we have honored kids who are making $300,000 making slime, a little girl who is a philanthropist, who was hand knitting gloves, and scarves, and socks for homeless people, and handing it out to them in California. It is all around the United States, there are all kinds of enterprising amazing youth. We will be bringing it to Africa soon, we will be bringing it to Ghana, and then maybe the European market. It is really cool because what is amazing about it is that we honor the adults as well, because what was happening is that we would speak to kids and unless you were Willow or Jayden Smith, and you had a silver spoon, there was a lot of things that they could not accomplish, and I was like that is not true. So, they wanted me to give them an example. I created this in order to provide examples of kids that were out there doing it on their own and then some had their parents help. We had kids who were working in supermarkets and they were taking that and turning it into money and then taking that money to seed their entrepreneurship, and so then we were able to go into the schools and say if you go on our website and you go to this section, you will be able to see all of the kids who did their own entrepreneurship.

Taking it a step further, then we had the adults because the kids would say, when these adults become rich or famous, they forget about the “hood” and they leave us. So, I said first of all, stop calling your neighborhood a hood, it is not just a hood, it is a neighborhood, it is your home, it is your community, and that is not true, there are a lot of people that give back. We honored people like this man who would buy computers and bring them back to Haiti and teach our local Haitians to build and re-build computers and taught them how to utilize the internet once the computer was fixed, Microsoft word and different programs.

We honored people who are music and self-love influencers to help change the dynamic of the youth that we have, in the world that we have. So, it is really amazing, and the best part is that they come in their little gowns and tuxedos…that is my favorite part because it is not really often where you have a space where kids get to wear and tux. We have everyone from Asian to Latin kids to Black kids who are honored, as well as Caucasian kids. The demographics are very inclusive of our people, which was important to me as well.

Our first year, we did an Afro-ballet performance, and the second year, we had a kid who played the saxophone, he played Rihanna’s song, ‘Diamonds’ on the saxophone, all of the kids were in awe of him because he was 13 years-old, he was Egyptian and Puerto Rican. Having moments like that to me, was just so amazing to be able to create those experiences. Our third annual gala was canceled because of Covid-19, we usually do it in April which is financial literacy month. But regardless we were still able to give back to a lot of families and kid-entrepreneurs. We do this thing where a kid-entrepreneur can win money towards a business, so the cool thing about that is that we had a kid-entrepreneur win more than one of them this year because we were unable to do an actual event, we just donated to the kid-entrepreneurs who submitted their business plans, and we taught them how to write a business plan and they were able to win money towards their business plan. So, things like that makes it so amazing.

H.O.R.: You are right, it is very important that we give our children that platform well, you went ahead sat down and thought about the fact that they do need a platform. When I was reading about it, I was like okay, she is encouraging our youth, not only teaching them but encouraging them. So, it motivates the child to strive to want to do better, because there is somebody within the organization that is acknowledging them, and not only acknowledging them but awarding them.

The fact that they get to have this space where they feel encouraged, and handsome and beautiful and they get to dress in a tux and a gown, that is so amazing, I can only imagine…that is so cute!

Jatali: I love the videos. We make these quick 1-minute videos for social media, and then we use that to promote the following year. It is magical to see them in their little sparkles and their little shoes, their tux with the sneakers or even the gowns with the sneakers because some of the little girls may choose to wear sneakers with their dresses. It has been a beautiful experience and it is nice to be in a space to be able to create those kinds of doors for our youth. It has been a humbling journey to say the least because if you told me a few years ago that this is what I would be doing, I would have been like yeah right…no way, not me.

I was semi anti-social before, but it was not like I did not like people. I have always liked people, it’s just that I was used to numbers. In the world of finance, you deal with numbers and not people, if you have to do a presentation there may be 5-10 people in the room and that is it. But you are not doing it in front of thousands of people, so if you told me that in the future that sometimes I would be in a room with 3-5,000 people, doing a presentation or talking about money, I would have been like yeah right. It is funny though because I do not notice any other subject that I could fluidly speak about comfortably as I do when it comes to money and just investing and saving and the balance of the two, talking about the barter system and teaching your children how to become responsible consumers. Because we live in a world where we are all consumers but, are we all responsible consumers.

H.O.R.: I read that as well, you are firm in the belief that you are never too young to become financially literate. That fact that you are fluent in this subject matter even though you may not have thought about being involved in certain aspects, I am sure that your family thought that you would be great. You were determined and you were seeking knowledge and asking questions is a way to obtain knowledge and you were doing that at a very young age.

In hindsight, we are always able to see things more clearly, whereas in the present we are not able to but when you are in the present you realize that you never saw this coming. So I can see how that encourages you and us. I think that everyone needs to check out what you have to offer, what you program has to offer, and it benefits everyone, you are never too young or old to learn about financial literacy and now is the right time.

So, you are teaching financial literacy and you are also encouraging us to invest in Ghana. I would like to know more about that, I definitely read about it but I would like for our listeners/viewers/readers to know, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Jatali: Right now, I am focused more on Ghana because I am building a youth art museum out there and I am working with a Ghanaian to make it happen, but realistically it is just investing back into the continent, and I feel that sometimes, especially now that we are seeing police brutality come up in certain conversations, and people are starting to feel offended when they hear that we are being referred to as the minority. As a mother of a Black boy, it bothers me to have him live in a country where he is surrounded in an environment where is constantly being told that he is a minority.

It was different for me because as a youth I was able to go to Africa and see a place where the majority of the people were my complexion and had curls like myself, or different textures of curls. I was not considered a minority, I was a majority, I was the continent and anybody else was the minority. We have areas where the Spanish mixed with the Natives, which is represented in our Afro-Latino community, there are Dominicans in different parts of Guatemala, or when you go to Honduras and you talk about the Garifuna (Previously known as Black Caribs who were originally from the island of St. Vincent, they speak Garifuna which is an Arawakan language). For people, the African continent has had a very deep connection with the world. When you go to Australia and look at the aboriginals, people might notice some there with a darker complexion and blonde hair, and green eyes and the thing is we just have that in the continent.

So, for me it is really about getting people to realize that there is another option. For a vacation, instead of going to Bali, go to the continent…let’s go to Seychelles, or different parts of Africa. If you are investing in real estate and you want to do it outside of the United States, well there is another option, there is another market, and there are politics involved but any country or state that you go to there are a different set of rules, you just have to learn the rules.

In Ghana, we are also doing rentals, there is a real estate market out there in the country, because the real estate market is comparable when it comes to rental price, it is similar to New York City, Atlanta, and other major cities. You can find rentals that are in the $1500 – $3,000 range, and the people have the money to pay that but then there are also affordable housing markets there being built in Ghana right now as well, just like here in the states, and there is a homeless community there too, which needs to be catered to.

I think that it is nice to give my child an opportunity to see a whole other side of the world and be comfortable. When he goes there, kids can be kids, because I often feel that here in New York sometimes, living in New York, I have a place in Long Island, and I feel it is not the same energy. We do not want them running in the streets and we worry about cars, and all kinds of things but then when you go to Ghana, you have an acre of land and your kid is just running around, and there might be more acres of land depending on where you are.

I love emerging markets, and Africa as a continent, has a lot of emerging market countries, to focus on. So, that is what is kind of going on over there, not to give away too much. I did do a podcast, called ‘Investment Opportunities’ in Ghana with EYL (Earn Your Leisure), I teamed up with them, and that went very well. It was interesting because I talked about infrastructure, and telecommunications, and real estate, even agriculture. One of the things that most people do not know is that I am in law school for cannabis law. I love the cannabis market, I do not smoke…I have never actually smoked, funny enough.

H.O.R.: What girl, stop.

Jatali: I am so serious, and people figure that because I am mixed with West Indian, and you are studying cannabis law…where’s the good high grade, and I’m like look fam, unfortunately (she says as they both laugh), you are talking to the wrong person, for the record and off the record, wrong person, but I do not judge people who do, and I feel like medicinally I have friends with inflammation issues, friends who are older Caucasian ladies in their 70’s who had cancer twice and are utilizing that to heal after chemotherapy and things of that nature, and I am just aware of the fact that there is an untapped market.

One of the cool things about the Ghanaian market is that they just legalized medicinal cannabis, the marijuana in March 2020. So, now that will be a whole other ball game out there. A lot of African countries are beginning to vote on it. Shout out to Cape Verde because they are going to be one of the other West African countries who will probably be jumping on board, so it is just cool things like that.

H.O.R.: I appreciate it all. To touch on what you were saying earlier, this is my opinion, of course, and what I believe is that we all come from a Black woman. A Black woman can create my shade, make the middle and the darker shade, and the in-between shade, we come from Black woman, we come from Black families, so we are not the minority, the Black families are not the minority, they are the majority. What you are doing is amazing because not only are you giving your son a better life, options, and future, you are doing it for all of our children too. I am the parent of 3 Afro-Latino boys, so when I read up on people who are doing bigger things for not just us but also for our children…people like yourself, encourages me to do something that I am good at.

I am walking my own path, what can I do to help our communities, that is what it is all about. Something else that you said, you mentioned that it was important to have different markets, and that is exactly what you are doing, and you are becoming fluent in each market, each path that you are endeavoring to walk in, and I commend you for that, because it teaches us that you cannot stay stagnate in one lane. If something else intrigues you, move over to the next lane once you have mastered that first one, because you have to master that first.

Jatali: Diversification, because when we talk about diversifying our portfolios, sometimes we only think about if I have money in these stocks, then I will have money in a physical commodity and then I will have real estate, and then I have money in a store. Diversifying also mean investing in other markets in other countries. So, if the American market goes down and the dollar is crashing, do you have something in the Asian markets, European markets or in the African continent?

Where else are you diversifying your money to ensure that if one market is really getting hammered, that you will be fine no matter what.

H.O.R.: Exactly, and that is what the end game is, teaching us to become open minded, to be diverse.

Jatali: To be self-sufficient, it is so important to become self-sufficient.

H.O.R.: I agree with you. I would like to ask you, are they any pieces of advice that you would like to give our youth or our adults that are actually, who get let go out work and do not know what their next move should be, especially this time that we are right now?

Jatali: The first thing that I would say is to do your research, research is free. The second thing is mentorship, try to find someone, if you are feeling overwhelmed, find someone that is successful in what it is that you are looking to do. You might not have a family member or someone in your demographic that is successful in what you want to do, do not think that you cannot talk to someone outside of your demographic if necessary because money only has one color and that is green. Do not get me wrong in other countries, it might orange or red, but overall, money is green, and money talks.

It transcends the knowledge that you are trying to achieve, do not pigeon hold yourself into a box, just because a person is not from the same country as you. I have seen people who were…I have a friend from the Garifuna, and she wanted someone to teach her something and she was like there is no body in my country that can teach me that and I told her well then go to somebody else’s country. I do not care if it is a Swedish woman who looks like she is 102 years old, if she knows what you need to know, learn from her.

It could be an old Greek guy who knows how to do wallpapers, guess what? If he is willing to teach you, learn. It does not matter where he is from, if he is not being disrespectful to you then what does it matter. Grants, there are some people who do not want a grant from the other side, there is no other side, it is all your money if you really believe it. Especially in a Black community in America, where the Native, Indigenous, and Black people were the ones who built a lot of the infrastructure.

I remember when I was writing my picture book, teaching financial literacy, we have a Native, indigenous character in the book, and I was doing my research and I found out that when the Empire State building was being built, a lot of Native people were considered to be metal benders because they were fearless, and they would take these jobs where they were going on these skyscrapers, so dangerous for most people, and they were just doing it. So, that was how they got the nickname metal bender, there were certain tribes that were fearless when it comes to that.

Learning these things, you do not know who knows what you need to know. So take this time, you may never get this opportunity again in your life. If Covid-19 taught us anything, it is that when it came down to it, our front-line people, our nurses, and our doctors, as much as people thought that they were respected and loved, they were the first people to be disrespected when it came to Covid-19. They were the first people to be told that you will be fired if you try to take a day off, the first people to be told, I do not care if you cannot handle seeing so much death, this is what you signed up for, and were told that if you leave or take a sabbatical, any time off, you will be fired.

It showed you that sometimes it is good to have a back-up plan. Whether you have savings that you can live off of for 2 years, or whatever the situation is, do not put yourself in a position where you only have one fail safe. The last thing that I will say is do not forget 2008, Lehman Brothers, people who had worked for a company that had been around for 150+ years, walked in because of the housing crash, and with everything else that was happening in 2008, the markets crashed. People walked in after working for a company for over 30 years and before the day was over, they walked out with their lives in boxes. Do not allow yourself to be handed a box, and feel like your life just ended, if anything…get the box and be like okay, it does not matter, let me go to my other job now. That is what I would say, and honestly, you are not going to get…the moment that you get that opportunity, pounce on it. You will be as successful as you allow yourself to be.

H.O.R.: I agree with you. Thank you, that is very beneficial. It is very courageous on your end to take on these endeavors, and then pour into us, so thank you.

I also do this at the end, are there any shoutouts that you would like to give?

Jatali: Shoutout to my son, he just got his first Instagram page, and he is five. He would like to teach kids how to build all kinds of stuff with Legos. After 2 years of asking, he has worn me down and I gave him a homework assignment, and I said if you can come up with 10 episodes of what you would actually create and do, then you can have your page, and he created his 10 episodes, he did the work, mommy had to do it. So his Instagram is @kingazikiwe. It is exciting to know that my little man is about to be his own little influencer at just five.

So, that is going to be my shoutout because that is my heartbeat, and he has his own social media page.

H.O.R.: We will go ahead and make sure that we tag him under this video and all social media so that we can follow him too. We are going to go ahead and tag you @kidswhobank, and also, I need to let people know that your website which is, www.brillantmindsunite.com. We need to go ahead and follow you and we need to see what you have to offer and invest in ourselves. Thank you for everything that you do sis.

Jatali: Thank you, and know that you have one more ally, so feel free to reach out, and if you want to figure out how to have certain conversations with your little ones and you want to get them on a budget…etc., you have one more ally to help you figure those attack plans out (she laughs).

H.O.R.: Thank you so much, I appreciate you and we will talk next time.

Jatali: Definitely (she waves goodbye).